Taking sides: Children vs. (non-human) animals

i've learned my lesson! i was expecting at least mulled wine and snacks and somewhere reasonably peaceful to sit. there were none of these things. i lasted 10 horrendous minutes

lex pictured at left:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia-cache-ec0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F51%2Fdd%2F85%2F51dd85b5d75559cdd99bdf85925fb74a.jpg&f=1

mulled wine makes parenting so much easier, and then so much harder

totally forgot Mordy wrote those Jacob Two Two books

i actually think i know one of his kids (or maybe it's his nephew)

i think the issue of there existing kids that have shitty lives is somewhat separate to lex not being delighted by being around kids

dunno really. a lot more abuse probably happened in the era of "kids should be soon and not heard".

getting irate about kids interrupting or barging in on conversations seems pretty childish in itself. yeah i prefer if i can talk to adults but equally kids need attention more than me and might not understand it if they don't get it.

*seen and not heard

the kids are OK. and here's why.

the "hating children = misanthropy" thing is interesting, I feel like there is also a particular kind of misanthrope who is very sentimental about children and prefers children to other adults. (kind of like misanthropic animal-lovers I guess?)

you're thinking of Tony Soprano

roald dahl

tho dunno if he was a shit to his kids as well as wives

lol, Dahl and Spike Milligan were the specific two I was thinking of, but I think it is a real phenomenon

I thought they both disliked children?

Dahl definitely.

I think Dahl identified with children, certainly, particularly in terms of fear and distrust towards adult humans

getting irate about kids interrupting or barging in on conversations seems pretty childish in itself.

what is this exaggeration? irritated ≠ irate

the "hating children = misanthropy" thing is interesting, I feel like there is also a particular kind of misanthrope who is very sentimental about children and prefers children to other adults. (kind of like misanthropic animal-lovers I guess?)

― soref, Tuesday, December 13, 2016 6:47 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all the stuff upthread about children being the perfect pure embodiment of various human attributes seemed misanthropic to me. like adults' qualities aren't good enough or something!

would be weird if dahl turned out to be a misanthrope as he is the source of one of the fictional examples of children-disliking misanthropes cited earlier as evidence of er something

jenny diski on dahl: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v16/n08/jenny-diski/stinker

RD is my dad's mum's sister's husband's brother -- he had a v bad rep in our wing of the family (i never met him tho i met the sister and the husband once)

xxp yeah, this idea that children are superior to adults because adults are all compromised and fall short of some dubious ideal of purity (not accusing any of the children-defenders on this thread of thinking this way or being misanthropes)

don't think it's wrong to try and discuss the differences between children and adults itt - it wasn't framed in terms of superiority either. it's not about superiority, it's about power and expectations.

if you look back at what i said, i said children seemed to have both a capacity to be more innocent but also to behave in a more base, destructive way. but that's minus any real power, screaming for a second dessert or something, which kind of goes to the heart of it for me. there's a power imbalance between adults and children. we shouldn't expect them to behave better than us.

personally i look at myself and imagine i was probably similar to the child i see running amok for five minutes, or just as self-centred, or just as lacking in self-awareness. perhaps some people look back at their childhood with a certainty they behaved perfectly, perhaps they look at their current selves with that certainty - that must be nice.

misanthropy towards adults is at least based on some sort of equal system of choice and power, though there's still too much revelling in it, or too much assumption in popular culture that hating things means you are clever. but you know, the world right now is not built very well to stop people feeling misanthropy for legitimate reasons.

like a child approaching a parent to interrupt a conversation with another adult - who in that situation needs the attention?

if this thread is actually about bad parenting, then fine. but judging children for being children is essentially pretending you were never a child.

this idea that children are superior to adults because adults are all compromised and fall short of some dubious ideal of purity

J.D. Salinger to thread

babies are cool

i was playing with my 6 year old nephew this weekend and have surprisingly warmed up to kids that age

but ya small doses

i can put up with dogs longer because they don't have to be babied so much and aren't as smart

tyread is actually about xcomparing kids to animals

like a child approaching a parent to interrupt a conversation with another adult - who in that situation needs the attention?

if one of the adults is talking about her mother's terminal cancer, they take precedence over anything other than an actual emergency

that anecdote sounds like the parent's fault, not the child's.

both io and lex were talking about the parents' behaviour there yes

I find parents more problematic than kids at times, but I'd still take cats over anything.

both io and lex were talking about the parents' behaviour there yes

fuck off

/A propos of upthread I know ppl with kids who you can still have a conversation with while the kids amuse themselves, and then I know ones where the child is used to interrupting by yelling and demanding immediate attention and the parent obliges every time, which isn't about the nature of children as much as boundaries and compromises parents make. It's still extremely tedious though./

the nadir i've witnessed of the latter was one friend talking about her mother's breast cancer to another friend (with toddler), and mid-sentence the latter just...switched her attention to her child with no warning or acknowledgement

most conversations are not as serious as that, fortunately, but the tendency to abruptly abandon conversations when children wander up is pretty common in parents

these are the posts

i don't think you can compare one random act of massive rudeness to every instance in which a parent might interrupt a conversation to listen to their child.

sorry i swore at you - i just don't get what your view is based on these interjections.

One can see plenty of shitty parents out there (roughly in proportion to the overall percentage of shitty people).

But IME most parents are terrified and exhausted and completely winging it 94.3% of the time. Personally I'm up around 96% right now.

Sorry yr parent friends are boring you; maybe they aren't aware of how much you depend on them to entertain you. Maybe they're going through a boring phase just now (because they're tired and scared and anxious and, again, completely winging it) and will return to being the cool hip people you once knew later. Maybe not. I don't know.

WTF is this 300-post thread full of invective even?

hate to ljsplain this (actually i lie, i love to lol) but this is the situation

some ppl are uneasy around children for w/e reason

some ppl adore children oo coo otty potty bum

if these two camps respect one another's positions then we will have a functional society

if you look back at what i said, i said children seemed to have both a capacity to be more innocent but also to behave in a more base, destructive way. but that's minus any real power, screaming for a second dessert or something, which kind of goes to the heart of it for me. there's a power imbalance between adults and children. we shouldn't expect them to behave better than us.

And not to get all "it takes a village" here but children don't just absorb their social and moral cues from their parents and grandparents, they absorb them from everyone around them. Treating them like pestilent little pariahs probably not a good idea.

obviously lex should just cut all the parents out of his life; it's better for everyone

it won't help on the sidewalks, but life is sadly imperfect

some ppl are uneasy around children for w/e reason

some ppl adore children oo coo otty potty bum

if these two camps respect one another's positions then we will have a functional society

yeah louis it's fairly easy to come in and say this.

the truth of the thread is it began by someone saying they hated children, the word "hated" was used, then subsequently the hatred was toned down to a diet version of "would prefer not to be around them" - which is fine. no problem with people choosing how to spend their time.

the truth of the thread is it began by someone saying they hated children, the word "hated" was used

stop lying and exaggerating you ridiculously overdramatic person

Xps he did say that was the nadir of what io was talking about! just didn't think it fair to say either is "blaming the child"

the word "hated" was used

By lex?

you have to wonder about the motivation behind interpreting "i dislike being around children and am annoyed by them and their parents" as "i hate all children and they make me an irate monster"

also i hated children when i was a child, it's not a new development

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:11 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i hated children when i was a child, it's not a new development

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:11 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i hated children when i was a child, it's not a new development

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:11 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i hated children when i was a child, it's not a new development

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:11 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As an adult, hanging out near the elementary school playground every day is finally YOUR choice.

you know who loved children?

Humbert Humbert

oh shit now I don't know what to think

xp Jimmy Savile

He loved corpses too, so he doesn't really count.

you know who loved children?

― Our Sweet Fredrest (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, December 13, 2016 2:35 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was also a vegetarian iirc